Posters for Nitin Patel as Gujarat CM amid succession crisis

Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel Sunday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) high command will decide who will lead the state after Chief Minister Vijay Rupani’s sudden resignation the previous day . Patel made the remarks after posters backing his name for the chief minister’s post appeared across Gujarat on Sunday as the BJP sent two  “observers” to the state for meetings with key leaders and the party’s Gujarat Legislature Party was due to meet on Sunday to elect Rupani’s successor. 

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Patel said someone who is “popular, experienced and takes everyone together” should be made the chief minister, according to a Press Trust of India report.

He also dismissed media reports about pressure from party high command as a possible reason for Rupani’s resignation. Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Prahlad Joshi were sent by the BJP’s parliamentary board to Gujarat on Sunday to hold meetings with party MLAs and other senior state leaders, Patel added.

The two observers are holding meetings with state BJP president CR Paatil and others. BJP national general secretary B L Santhosh, Union minister and Gujarat in-charge Bhupender Yadav, joint in-charge Sudhir Gupta, among others, were gathering opinions on the possible next chief minister.

The BJP’s national leadership will decide on the name of the new chief minister, as per the opinions gathered from the MLAs and senior Gujarat BJP leaders, Patel told reporters.

Rupani’s sudden resignation on Saturday came over a year before elections for the 182-member Assembly in Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s home state in December 2022.

The Congress party said Rupani had been made a “scapegoat” in BJP’s “internal tussle.”

Rupani is the fourth BJP chief minister to resign in recent months. Karnataka’s BS Yediyurappa resigned as Chief Minister in July. In Uttarakhand, Tirath Singh Rawat resigned as Chief Minister just four months after replacing Trivendra Singh Rawat. Pushkar Singh Dhami took over as Uttarakhand Chief Minister.